Data surveillance: Who’s watching EU?

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October 23, 2013 |
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European confidence in data privacy protection has suffered a blow after revelations that the US National Security Administration (NSA) has been intercepting European digital communications. What do members of parliament think?

Data privacy sacrosanct
“Data protection is enshrined in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU. The whole EU law is inspired by this principle. We do not have the right to judge the laws of other states, be they in agreement with ours or not. What we care about is protecting our citizens and their privacy. If there is a clash between these two principles, a reasonable solution must be found. This does not mean that we can accept any foreign meddling into our affairs, unless it is justified by higher-level interests.”

Lara Comi (Italy) Group of the European People’s Party
(Christian Democrats)

EU must react
“The United States have a different view point on data protection from the EU. Due to the recent events we are now witnessing a change in the discussion in the US. Every citizen needs to be able to decide how his or her personal data can be used. Data protection standards within the EU are very high. The use of European personal data by US companies is a difficult issue when the data is being stored on US servers. EU Member States will have to react towards the US.”

Manfred Weber (Germany) Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats)

Raise the level of protection
“The latest revelations about the US are a ‘wake-up call’ for the European citizen and all those dealing with data protection in the EU. We are working on a reform of data protection rules in the EU. We must insist on maintaining the high level of data protection achieved in Europe and strive to raise this level, both in the private and in the public sector.
It is about the daily life of the European citizen, it is about effectively protecting the citizen’s fundamental rights.”

Big Data. Big business.
[Viviane Reding, Vice-President of the European Commission and EU Justice Commissioner, addressed the issue at the DLD conference held in Munich 15th July 2012]
“I call on all Member States to follow Chancellor Merkel’s leadership so that the EU data protection reform can be finalised before the elections of the European Parliament in May 2014. Essentially this is about trust. Trust has been lost in all these spying scandals. Our central task now is to restore it. Without trust the digital economy cannot grow. Big data is potentially big business. Potentially. If we can make it safe…“

Viviane Reding Vice-President of the European Commission, EU Justice Commissioner

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